I'm a 24-year-old gay male with a problem. For about a year and a half I fought off feelings for a younger friend, he's 19 years old. I told myself it wouldn't work, that I'd get hurt, that he'd end up leaving me. I guess I finally broke and we started being physical. Before any of this started we discussed that it would be open since he would be moving away soon. I was fine with this since we tell each other everything and he specifically told me he wasn't really trying to make something happen with another person.

Flash forward a week and a half and he's in constant contact with this other boy. Sure enough he sees this guy three times in one week and gives me a piss-poor excuse as to why he had to sleep over. I'm mad at myself that I put myself in a position to get hurt. But do I have a right to be upset with my friend? He says he didn't think this would upset me but it really has.

Closed Off To Open

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My response after the jump...

You can be upset with your friend-with-non-exclusive-benefits, COTO, but only if he led you to believe that he would of course be open to a closed relationship but cruel, cruel circumstance—his upcoming move—prevented you two from forming the kind of lifelong, monogamous bond that he dreams about.

If he didn't do that—if he told you he wanted an open relationship because he wanted to fuck other people and he's moving away soon anyway—then you should mostly be upset with yourself.

If you agreed to an open relationship because you hoped and/or expected that this boy wouldn't actually sleep with anyone else, well, that was kinda dumb. You knew going in that the relationship wasn't exclusive. He shouldn't have been a sneak about seeing that other boy—he should've told you straight-up that he was sleeping with the other boy instead of issuing lame excuses and letting you figure it out—and you can be upset about how he handled it, COTO, but you can't be upset that a guy who told you he wanted to fuck other guys actually went and fucked some other guy.

Of course he thought it would upset you—that's why he didn't tell you—but if you didn't and don't want sleep with guys who are fucking around on you, COTO, don't enter into open relationships.